Penn State secures building automation, IoT traffic with microsegmentation

BACnet is a communications protocol for buildingautomation and control (BAC) systems such as heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting, access control and fire detection. Penn State standardized on BACnet because of its openness.

“Any device, any manufacturer – as long as they talk BACnet, we can integrate them,” says Tom Walker, system design specialist in the facility automation services group at Penn State. “It’s a really neat protocol, but you have to know the quirks that come with deploying it, especially at scale.”